Must Reads

A friend of mine who is a Spanish teacher at a local elementary school said something over the weekend that got me thinking about whether or not everybody is capable of learning a new language. She said that in her years as a teacher, she’s seen with her own two eyes how some children struggle to learn Spanish while others pick it up with unbelievable ease. The most interesting part is that, some times, the students who struggle are the ones you’d least expect: theRead More&nbsp...

It’s been a while since the last time we took a look at the media buzz regarding bilingualism. In the past, we’ve let you know our reaction to newspaper articles, blog posts or videos related to bilingual education, Latino culture and the Spanish language. Now, we constantly share them on our Facebook page and strike up a conversation there. But what was in the news last week deserves a more in-depth look. The Los Angeles Times, printed three op-ed articlesRead More&nbsp...

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on this blog in November 2009. I was recently talking to somebody of Hispanic descent who wasn’t taught Spanish at home, but learned it later on in life. She vowed she wouldn’t follow her parents’ footsteps, but ended up doing exactly the same thing with her kids who are now elementary school-aged. “And, now it’s too late!” she lamented. I immediately reassured her that it’s never too late – that’s just a common myth.Read More&nbsp...

This week my daughter and I met up with a Spanish-speaking amiga and her 3 and a half year old son. Camila and him have a preschool, platonic-love relationship and are always looking forward to their play dates. While at the park, my friend mentioned that the only other kid her son interacted with in Spanish is my daughter. I thought that was a little odd since my daughter is still at a stage where she is sorting out bothRead More&nbsp...

I used to be pretty harsh on myself if I couldn’t finish a sentence without going back and forth between English and Spanish when speaking with other bilinguals, an action commonly known as code-switching among linguists. Like many bilinguals and monolinguals alike, I simply believed this was wrong. I thought it meant I wasn’t really proficient in either language—even when I knew this not to be the case—or that I was simply forgetting my Spanish. I was wrong! In theRead More&nbsp...

After almost 18 months nurturing SpanglishBaby into the incredible useful online resource for those raising bilingual and bicultural children it has become thanks to all our readers, I tend to think that everyone knows about the myths and misconceptions associated with bilingualism (or multilingualism). I guess after such a long time reading, researching and learning about the benefits of bilingualism, it’s easy to forget that not everybody is aware of them. So I was bit surprised last week when IRead More&nbsp...

We hope you’ve enjoyed and learned a few things during our bilingual homeschooling week. As I mentioned at the beginning of the week, although there are tons of resources for those homeschooling their children, there are not a whole lot when it comes to doing it in two languages. Either way, we’ve put together a list of links that we hope will be of some use to you. Some of them are just great links of homeschooling in general, othersRead More&nbsp...

When I was ten years old, after eating breakfast and saying good-bye to my older siblings who headed out for high school, it was time for Spanish dialogue class with my dad. He had a book of dialogues he had used while learning Spanish to be a missionary in Mexico. We memorized dialogues and I had to put dramatic expression and movements to them. I still remember the dialogue about waiting in line for a buffet lunch, “Ay, que colaRead More&nbsp...

We are two Latina moms – best friends since college – who are extremely passionate about ensuring our children not only speak both our languages, English and Español, but that they also grow up proud of both their cultures, Latino and American. Over three years ago we realized there's was a lack of information available for parents raising bilingual + bicultural children, so using our background in media, we launched SpanglishBaby.